Welcome to edition twenty one of Insider Weekends. Insider buying increased slightly last week with insiders purchasing $3.42 million of their stock when compared to $3.05 million in the week prior. Selling also increased with insiders selling $987.33 million worth of stock when compared to $567.34 million in the week prior.
Sell/Buy Ratio:
The insider Sell/Buy ratio is calculated by dividing the total insider sales in a given week by total insider buying in that week. The adjusted ratio for last week went up to 289.1. In other words, insiders sold more than 289 times as much stock as they purchased. The Sell/Buy ratio this week compares unfavorably with the week prior when the ratio stood at 186.1. We are calculating an adjusted ratio by removing transactions by funds and companies and trying as best as possible only to retain information about insiders and 10% owners who are not funds or companies.
Note: As mentioned in the first post in this series Introduction to Insider Weekends, certain industries have their preferred metrics such as same store sales for retailers, funds from operations (FFO) for REITs and revenue per available room (RevPAR) for hotels that provide a better basis for comparison than simple valuation metrics. However metrics like Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Enterprise Value/EBITDA included below should provide a good starting point for analyzing the majority of stocks.
Notable Insider Buys:
1. American Express Company (AXP): $41.46
Director Theodore Leonsis acquired 20,000 shares of AmEx, paying $39.38 per share for a total amount of $787,648. Two other directors have purchased stock since the start of the year.